Review: The Fauns – The Fauns

Full marks to Bristol band The Fauns for their honesty and humour. Their reaction to the current indie scene is “to buy a million cool guitar effects pedals and grow our fringes”. They were also mentored during the production of their first album by a certain local musician named Geoff Barrow, although you couldn’t get much further away from the harsh sounds of Portishead’s last album than this.

For a group made up of three guitarists, The Fauns make a surprisingly gentle noise. This is the softer side of shoegazing where swirling atmospherics wash over the speakers. Added to this is Alison Garner’s light, aching vocals to caress each song, making them even smoother. Jangly affairs like ‘Understand’ (actually a cover version of a song by 1980’s indie act Brian) are multi-layered and mesmeric, ‘Come Around Again’ revolves around a subtle hook and ‘Fragile’ is simply lovely as its slow percussion, effects and Garner’s tender tones build into a fabulous glacial melody. The only problem is the lack of urgency on the album where even the faster tracks like ‘Black Sand’ are blurred around the edges.

The Fauns arrive at a time when shoegazing is more in demand than ever but I’m not sure that they bring anything particularly new to the genre. That said, if you like your music to float rather than to grind, you could do a lot worse.